Submit your Article

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Prince Faisal bin Fahran Al Saud is arriving in Nepal on a two-day visit on Monday.

During the visit, the Saudi Foreign Minister is scheduled to pay courtesy call on President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, read a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Narayan Khadka will hold a meeting with his Saudi counterpart on 15 March 2022.

Minister Khadka will host a luncheon in honour of the visiting dignitary, the statement read.

Waves of Russian missiles pounded a military training base near Ukraine’s western border with NATO member Poland, killing 35 people, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday, Associated Press reported.

The strike followed Russian threats to target foreign weapon shipments that are helping Ukrainian fighters defend their country against Russia’s grinding assault.

More than 30 Russian cruise missiles targetedthe sprawling training facility that is less than 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the closest border point with Poland, according to the governor of Ukraine’s western Lviv region. Poland is a transit route for Western military aid to Ukraine, and the United States increased the number of America troops deployed there.

The training center near Yavoriv appears to be the westernmost target struck during Russia’s 18-day invasion. The facility, also known as the International Peacekeeping and Security Center, has long been used to train Ukrainian military personnel, often with instructors from the U.S. and other NATO countries, according to the Associated Press.

It has also hosted international NATO drills. As such, the site symbolizes a longstanding Russian complaint: that the 30-member Western military alliance has expanded in Eastern Europe too close to Russian territory. One of Moscow’s stated conditions for ending the hostilities in Ukraine is for the country to drop its ambitions to join NATO.

Lviv governor Maksym Kozytskyi said most of the Russian missiles fired Sunday “were shot down because the air defense system worked.” The ones that got through through killed at least 35 people and wounded 134, he said. 

NATO said Sunday that it currently does not have any personnel in Ukraine. A NATO official didn’t respond to questions about when the alliance last had personnel at the training base. 

The city of Lviv itself so far has been spared the scale of destruction unfolding to its east and south. Its population of 721,000 has swelled during the war with residents escaping other bombarded population centers and as a waystation for the nearly 2.6 million refugees who fled the country, Associated Press reported.

Ukrainian and European leaders have pushed with limited success for Russia to grant safe passage to civilians trapped by fighting. Ukrainian authorities said more than 10 humanitarian corridors would open Sunday, with agreement from Russia, including from the battered and besieged port city of Mariupol, where authorities say more than 1,500 people have been killed.

Chairman of the CPN (Maoist Centre) Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ has said his party would forge an electoral alliance with the ruling parties as much as possible, and if not, it would face the election alone. 

Chairman Dahal reiterated that utmost efforts would be made for keeping intact the alliance for the coming elections.  

The current alliance solved the problems that surfaced in course of the implementation of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact, he argued while addressing a programme organized to unveil a life-size statue of the late leader Posta Bahadur Bogati ‘Dibakar’ here Saturday. 

“With the decision made by the central committee meeting of the party for the two-month-long election campaign, it is time to concentrate on the election,” he reminded the cadres and urged them to reach people’s doorsteps to appeal to people’s support towards the party.

According to him, strong relations with people will help ensure the party’s victory in the coming elections. 

At the programme, he remembered the late leader Dibakar as an honest and dedicated leader which contributed hugely to party movement and organization. His loss is realized now, he added.

Even the leaders of other political parties as Dr Ram Sharan Mahat, Arjun Narsing KC and Rajendra Prakash Lohani expressed views on the late leader Dibakar.

Then vice chairman of the party, Dibakar died of a heart attack on September 15, 2014. RSS

CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairperson Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' said that there was no possibility for cooperation with the CPN-UML at the moment.

In his address to a press meet organised here today by the Press Organisation Nepal, Province Committee, he hinted at the possibility of an alliance with like-minded parties in the upcoming elections.

 “There will be competition between the two sides: one contributing to institutionalizing changes in the country and other trying to reverse accomplishments, resorting to House obstructions.” 

Dahal, also former Prime Minister, said that they would reach out to the public with their own ideology and vision and would emerge a winner in the upcoming May 13 local-level election.

According to him, the current coalition also emphasizes electoral alliance among the five-party coalition members in the government.

He shared that top leadership of the coalition parties had discussed with the UML to clear Parliament obstructions by the UML itself but there was no consensus. "Hence, the coalition partners have agreed to hold the elections within stipulated time by passing the bill amid the obstruction of the House."

On a different note, Dahal viewed that people would continue to come and go away from the party. As for the Rangeli Municipality's mayor quitting the Maoist Centre and joining the UML, Dahal commented that it was due to his personal interest.

He was also confident that the MCC with interpretative declaration would be implemented in a dignified manner and the US-grant aid will help in the development of the country. RSS